Ski Bum

A morning on the slopes with our littlest skier...SO MUCH FUN.  Our Owen is a pretty sensitive boy, so taking him this far out of his comfort zone could have been quite the tale to tell, but he surprised both Mommy and Daddy and took it all in stride.
I wasn't able to take my "good" camera on the hill with me (please cut me some slack...a 20 month old on skis and a 34 week pregnant belly was enough baggage for one morning... ;) ...so the ol' iPhone was our weapon of choice.  A little photo enhancement made these two photos "scrappable" (because this memory was intended to be scrapped no matter the quality of the photos) and when I saw the Authentique January layout sketch, I knew exactly which paper to grab!  Journey's fantastic cool colours are the perfect combination for my Ski Bum layout without screaming, "I'm a winter themed scrapbooking collection!"
I was SOOOOOO lucky to have been spoiled rotten at the www.scrapbooksteals.com scrapbooking retreat in October and couldn't have been more fortunate to be whisked away one evening for a visit to the Authentique warehouse.  Sam, Bret and Melodee (the whisk-er away-er) were so generous taking the time to show us around, answer our questions and even pick our brains that night...and to top it off, sent us home with some AMAZING Authentique to try out ourselves!
So that's how I ended up with this fantastic collection!

For starters...here is the January sketch layout on the Authentique blog...

And here is my take...

From the Journey collection, I used "Jaunt," "Explore,", "Voyage," "Itinerary" and the date tag from "Tabloids." AC minimarks for the date, AC Thickers for the title, MME True Blue bling on the date tag and journaling tag.  Some unidentified ribbon and starburst bling (both from the dollar store) and "Forever in Time" deco border under the dollar store ribbon.  The teal blue trim came out of my stash...and also didn't have packaging...so I love it, but I don't have any idea where it's from (hangs head in shame).  To bring down the brightness of the white journaling tag (plain white cardstock), I sprayed "Tattered Angels" Glimmer mist in Sand and inked all the papers in Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink (dark brown).  I also used Sew Easy glitter floss to "stitch" the thickers and stitch the top brackets (just arrived in the mail yesterday)!!!

Thanks!!!

A Little Help Would Be Greatly Appreciated...

Please don't pretend like you've never held off on helping out one of your kids in need...to snap a photo first.  Okay, well, maybe I'm just asking for a little bit of back up here from my fellow moms...lol...to ease my guilty conscience.

We were playing outside and Owen's snowsuit is a little snug.  I ordered a size 2T at the end of last winter thinking that would offer plenty of room for him to grow. Well, not so much.  It's really quite snug and I'm 100% regretting not buying him a one-piece ski suit like Joely's Jupa (which I loooooooove...and she's on her second year wearing it).  The jacket fits okay, but the pants are very tight around his rather robust waist, so getting the button done up...is a challenge.

His snug ski pants on top of the general waddling principles of a toddler in a snowsuit, make for a less than an enthusiastic boy heading outside (mostly during the "getting dressed" phase).  Getting down to play in the snow is no easy task when you are sausaged into your clothing, and apparently getting up from a fall proves to be no easier.

When Owen was stuck in this position, I grabbed the camera before helping him up (his frustrated tears and all) and snapped a photo.  He was not impressed.

To scrap this photo, I used EP Wintertime (love that collection) along with a few little tidbits I had been hoarding in my craft room.  All the paper and the journaling tag is from Wintertime, but underneath the photo I used plain ol' twine from the hardware store.  Kristy Lee (www.scrapbooksteals.com) used cardboard in her fabulous layout based on her awesome MWM Garnet #5 sketch and I loved the look of it, but didn't want to copy every element, so decided to try out the twine. Underneath the twine you see MME Laundry Line Natural "My Boy" trim and some white AC ribbon hiding underneath the snowflake sticker border (also EP).  You see the same style ribbon in red, also AC.

The single foam snowflakes are from the dollar store and were purchased for my two-year old's crafty stash...I wonder if she'll notice that there are a few missing...  I blinged up all the snowflakes on the layout with little gem stickers from the dollar store (I think).  They aren't fantastic quality, but didn't have a label...so I'm just assuming. I love that there's so much bling on my boy's layout...not just for girls!

One strip of felt ric rac along the *seriously inked* vertical paper strips seemed to finish off that section of the layout for me.  I love Colorbox Fluid Chalk inks...I used Dark Brown all over this layout (I'm an inkaholic).  Lastly, American Crafts Remarks make up the word "help!" in the title and Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type fill in the blanks!

Another amazing sketch by the talented Kristy Lee!  Thanks Kristy!!!  My first layout of 2012!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Jana

Fun Frame!

Okay...we all know that mittens, rosy cheeks and snow days are right around the corner, and I think I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to the winter season.  I love playing outside in the snow and my kids are definitely "lemme outside" kind of kids...so I was excited when Kristy asked if I could help out, along with a few fellow "stealers" with today's steal...I had just the photo I ***needed*** to get out there on display!
I am a sucker for displaying my own photos in my house as artwork...we haven't invested a ton of money in decorating yet...so maybe it's just an excuse to get something (anything) up on the wall or sitting on the mantle, but give me a super cute pic of my kids over a Picasso anyday.

I started with spray painting the frame base in silver.  For the winter/Christmas season, I loooooove the look of cool blues, whites and silvers over the traditional red, green and gold...so I was already eying up Echo Park's Wintertime (one of my favourite EP lines) to cut into for this frame.

I used my pink ATG to line the outside edge with adhesive and cut my base paper to fit.  I trimmed off any excess with my x-acto knife and was left with a very neat and tidy covered frame.  Maybe a little too neat and tidy, lol, because I used my Imaginisce D-Stress tool to give the edges a bit of a worn look.  I added a few cute stickers (and made them pop with pop dots) along with an appropriate title for the photo I had in mind, some twine to "tie" the mitts together and added a bit of bling to the snowflake.  I had originally left the base blank with just the matching paper, but added the button, twine and pearls to give it a little something extra...

I was having some trouble getting just the right picture, so you're stuck looking at two...lol!

Thanks so much for stopping by!!!

Totally Topaz!!!

Sorry about the repeats...and the mass post with no explanations, but I'm just in need of a place to post my 10 Topaz layouts for www.scrapbooksteals.com.  I'm pleased with all of them except for #10...I guess you can't love them all, but scrapping at midnight is DEFINITELY not my forte.  :(  Here they are from #1 to #10.  :)

Whew! Thanks for looking! :) Now, I've got some scrap room organizing to do...lol...looks like a tornado went through!!!

Monday Card Madness #49!

So very much NOT a card maker over here, but this was the little push I needed to make a card for a friend who may need a little boost in the near future.  I love Kristy Lee's sketch from www.scrapbooksteals.com for MCM #49.  Here's the sketch...

I am super happy that I actually used ONLY scraps for this card...even the main piece for the card was a scrap from the Cricut.  :)  I had a bit of a mishap with my inking on the blue polka-dotted scrap, but oh well...lol!  I tried to cover it.  ;) None of the paper is really identifiable...the only thing I know for sure is that the pink ribbon is American Crafts, and the tiny bling added to the MS butterfly punch is I-Rock bling. Even the swirly bling was cut off from a larger swirl that I used on a different project.

Thanks for lookin'!  

Best Ever Hiding Place

I have had this collection in my posession for what seems like FOREVER!!!  I'm so excited to finally have found the perfect set of photos to scrap using WRMK Geo-Hectic.  It's a really cute collection, and when I was playing around with the colours of these photos in Picnik, I thought they looked a little retro (I'm sure our retro kitchen cabinets didn't hurt) and I think Geo-Hectic has a bit of a retro vibe to it...so it seemed like a perfect match!

I used Kristy Lee's sketch from www.scrapbooksteals.com (Topaz #5) for this layout...

Here's my layout!

In addition to some of the Geo-Hectic collection, I used some I-Rock bling, Thickers, Sassafras letters, twine (can't get enough) and my Ranger Espresso ink.  OH, and I JUST that day had gotten 7 rolls of washi tape in the mail that I had ordered from Etsy...you see a bit of that too.  I wasn't sure how I would feel about the washi tape in person, but I love it!  Just a little something to add!

Thanks for checking me out! ;)

Canmore 2011

I found this sketch (perfect for Joely's Canmore layout) through one of my crafty groups and I'm so glad I did!  I really love its simplicity, but it was not an easy sketch for me to execute...at all!  LOL!  I actually ended up completely tossing my first version...wasting a bunch of time and a bunch of I-Rock gems...lol!  Oh well, I'm so much happier with the way the second layout turned out!  I bought this Martha Stewart butterfly punch last week from Michael's (for 25% off) and I've been waiting for the perfect, simple layout to use it on!  This was the one!  Glad it only took a week to find!  I love these little butterflies!  Here's the sketch from the Sweet Peach Crop Shop blog (2nd August Sketch)...

Cute, right!?  This was my take on it...

Plain white card stock, no name ribbon, BG buttons, Sass lettering for the title, Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe paper (the strip down the right-hand side, the butterflies and the journaling tag), I-Rock gems and Sew Easy made this layout work for me!  I'm pleased with the results!